The present invention relates to an ergonomic housing for electroacoustic transducers, particularly for ultrasound imaging, including at least an inner space housing, one or more electroacoustic transducers and possible further electric and/or electronic components. The housing has at least an acoustic window at which the one or more electroacoustic transducers are placed. Further included is a handle part composed of an opposing gripping surface having a shape that is ergonomically fitted for being gripped by a hand or a portion thereof.
Housings of this broad type or category are known in the technical field. The ultrasound imaging is considerably widespread and it is often used. By means of studies in the field it has been found that users of ultrasound systems have muscle-skeletal diseases of the hand, wrist, neck and back coinciding with the use of ultrasound probes.
In order to avoid or at least to reduce the above issues, housings whose shape has been ergonomically modified are known. One observation is that observed diseases can be eliminated or reduced by allowing the hand and the muscle-skeletal structure associated thereto to have relaxation moments. However, this must be done without losing the control of the probe such that when the examination is carried out the probe can be gripped with a sufficient security in order to guide it and to exert the necessary pressure against the patient.
One solution to this challenge is described in the document WO2005/053537 (Koninklijke Philips electronics N.V.) wherein in the location opposite to the acoustic window from which soundproofing pulses are emitted, the probe housing has a cap-like surface that is wide enough to allow the surface of the palm of the hand to grip the housing. The gripping surface, called a palmar gripping surface, is a kind of spherical or spheroidal gripping member that is gripped by the hand as a ball.
A similar solution is provided in the U.S. patent publication document US2006/0173331 (Siemens Corporation). In this disclosure, the housing of the probe provides a palmar gripping surface provided in an opposite location with respect to the acoustic window.
However, this palmar grip does not completely solve the above issues, since it does not allow the user to relax the hand without losing the grip on the housing of the probe. As such, the hand has to remain substantially tight on the surface of the housing forming the manual handle part. Even if during rest moments while the tightening force can somewhat be relaxed, the hand cannot be absolutely stretched in the correct relaxation position of the muscle-skeletal structure.
Even if such configuration of the housing for ultrasound probes providing the palmar grip increases somewhat the situation with respect to the conventional pen type grip by which the probe is held between the fingers (position called pinching in the technical jargon) for performing the scanning, probes providing a palmar grip do not allow to alternatively grip the probe by a pen type grip (pinching).
Considering the above, the present invention aims at providing an ergonomic housing for electroacoustic transducers, particularly for ultrasound imaging, for overcoming the issues with known housings and allowing one to surely hold the probe in the hand even in a position of substantial complete relaxation of the muscle-skeletal structure thereof.
The invention aims also at improving the housing such as to avoid drastic changes to the conventional structure of probes, to make simpler and to rationalize the manufacturing of ultrasound probes.
The invention achieves the above aims by providing an ergonomic housing for electroacoustic transducers, particularly for ultrasound imaging, of the type described herein. The housing has a shape or profile constructed and arranged to be ergonomically fitted for being gripped between two adjacent fingers of the hand, i.e. to be inserted in the hollow between two adjacent fingers of the hand of the user.
Advantageously the shape and sizes of the housing are such that the adjacent fingers of the hand holding the housing do not force fingers of the hand to be opened wide or to be tightened leading fingers to not be relaxed. On the contrary, particularly the shape and sizes of the housing are such to allow the holding between the two fingers in a natural relative spacing position thereof.
An advantageous embodiment provides the gripping surface of the housing to have a gripping surface that is ergonomically shaped in order to be gripped between the fingers, i.e. by interposing it in the hollow between two adjacent fingers of the hand.
The gripping extension to be held between the fingers is shaped such to be anatomically adapted to be engaged in the hollow between the fingers between two adjacent fingers of the hand, particularly between the forefinger and the middle finger or between the middle finger and the forefinger.
Advantageously the gripping surface of the housing from which the gripping extension to be held between the fingers comes out has a resting part that is like a spherical or spheroidal cap or dome and that is provided opposing the acoustic window, the gripping extension to be held between the fingers being provided at the top of the resting part.
The gripping extension that is held between the fingers may have various shapes and sizes. It can be also composed of an elongated member like a pen or the like having a rounded shape in section.
According to a further characteristic improving the security of the grip between the fingers, the gripping extension to be held between the fingers has at least a pair of opposite gripping recesses with a U-shaped section, each of which is intended for housing one of the two adjacent fingers for the engagement between the fingers of the gripping extension.
As a further improvement, the gripping extension that is held between the fingers has an annular recess having substantially a U-shaped section, whose bottom surface is formed by a band of shell axial surface connected in a rounded way with the two side surfaces that are formed by surfaces transverse to the longitudinal axis of the extension and connected to the bottom surface, possibly only one or both in a rounded way. One of the two side surfaces of the annular recess is composed of the resting part of the gripping surface and the other side surface is composed of the surface of a radial annular enlargement provided at a certain distance from the resting part of the gripping surface.
The gripping extension that is held between the fingers has a rotation symmetrical shape or alternatively a non-circular shape of the section, with a greater axis substantially oriented towards the fingers gripping it and/or in the antero-posterior direction of the hand and/or in the direction of the hollow between the fingers and with a smaller axis oriented in the direction transversal to the longitudinal axis of the fingers and/or to the antero-posterior direction of the hand.
In a related embodiment, the gripping extension that is held between the fingers is a sleeve for the introduction of an electrical cable for connecting the transducer.
Various relative arrangements of the acoustic window with respect to the gripping surface and with respect to the gripping extension that is held between the fingers are possible. A particular choice for example provides gripping extension that is held between the fingers to have a longitudinal axis that coincides with the prolongation of a vector perpendicular to the center of the acoustic window.
With regard to the acoustic window, it has to be shaped in a way corresponding to the array of electroacoustic transducers that can be linear, i.e. flat or curved such as in convex probes or the curvature may be according to two axes that are perpendicular one with respect to the other or anyway they are not parallel. In this case, the acoustic window is composed of a flat member or it has a curved configuration respectively only according to a curvature axis or according to two or more curvature axes there being possible also the fact that the curvature can be opposite to the one of the gripping surface.
In order to allow the gripping of the housing with a so called pen type grip (pinching), the housing has such a shape and such a thickness at least in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal axis to be gripped with a position of the hand corresponding to the so called pen type grip, the shape and the thickness being provided for a part of the housing associated to the end having the acoustic window.
Other manufacturing variants improving the gripping comfort may provide the housing to have two opposite recesses with a section rounded shape, at an intermediate region of the housing, between the gripping surface and the acoustic window. Moreover the housing may have, from the intermediate region and in the direction of the acoustic window, two different thicknesses in the direction of each one of two axes perpendicular one with respect to the other and enclosed in the plane perpendicular to the axis of the gripping extension to be held between the fingers or in a plane tangential or parallel to the acoustic window.
The handle part of the housing forming the cap-like gripping surface opposite to the acoustic window, is advantageously composed of a spheroidal body that is flattened on two sides that are diametrically opposite one with respect to the other. This construction provides two different diameters, a greater one and a smaller one in the plane perpendicular to the axis of the gripping extension to be held between the fingers. The two opposite side recesses provided in the intermediate region of the housing are made as hollow ones in the direction of the greater axis.
Therefore the invention provides a housing made of a first housing part and a second housing part, which housing parts are harmonically completed one with the other and are divided along an intermediate separation plane between a part that is shaped so as to form a gripping handle with a pencil type grip position and a gripping handle part that is shaped such to be held by gripping it between fingers.
It is possible to provide the two housing parts to be integrally made or to be movably fastened one to the other or it is possible to provide the two housing parts to be movably fastened one to the other.
Still according to an advantageous characteristic of the present invention, the housing is provided in combination with one or more transducers, an electronic circuit, a cable connecting the electronic circuit to remote processing and control devices and a member connecting the cable to the electronic circuit. A part of the two cooperating connector parts is integral with the first housing part and the other one is integral with the second housing part. The two connector parts are automatically engaged and disengaged one with the other contemporaneously when the two housing parts are fastened and separated.
By the latter characteristic, it is possible to provide a first housing part that is firmly associated with transducers and with possible circuits and electric or electronic components, different combinations of first housing parts and transducers and possible circuits and electronic components that are different one with respect to the other being provided. While it is possible to provide only a second housing part that is firmly associated to the control cable, all first housing parts have a movable fastening end that is the same and it can be fastened and separated from only a second housing part.
Differently from present machines, by means of the above for different probes it is possible to provide the same cable that can be firmly integrated in the frame of an ultrasound machine for example, or possibly by providing also automatic winding means as in supplying and control cables of dental tools in so called dental drill units.
The present invention relates also to an ultrasound probe having a housing of the type described herein and a combination of ultrasound machine and probe with the housing described above. Further, the control and supplying cable of the ultrasound probe that is firmly integrated in the machine structure is mounted on automatic unwinding and winding means.
Further improvements of the housing, of the probe and of the ultrasound machine according to the present invention are described herein.
Characteristics of the invention and advantages deriving therefrom will be further understood from the following description and accompanying drawings.